


The Years I Didn't Know You Were There

by LunaStoat



Category: Transformers, Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Birth, M/M, Mech Preg, Multi, Pregnancy, Premature Birth, Transformer Sparklings, graphic depiction of birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 06:24:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18005540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaStoat/pseuds/LunaStoat
Summary: Gestation in a Cybertronian lasts for years, but at least the carrier usually knows what they're in for during the bulk of the cycle. Ratchet isn't so lucky, as he finds himself in the midst of emergence during what he assumed was an ordinary work day. An AU that takes place in between the first three movies.





	The Years I Didn't Know You Were There

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I know for sure that this belongs in the mech preg tag. I'm sorry, but I could not find any mech preg content of Bayverse Ratchet for months and I'd categorize that as a crime. Of course I have to do everything myself.
> 
> If you're thinking to yourself "hey, this sounds a lot like another mech preg fic I've read for another Transformers continuity or another character", then... yes. This is inspired by a few different fics I've read.

            He didn’t know when the pain started.

            As far as Ratchet knew, he’d been experiencing discomfort in his lower abdomen the entire day. It wasn’t important. As the Autobot CMO, nothing was as important as tending to the wounds of his comrades. That, and NEST headquarters was constantly bustling, not only with Autobots, but with the human agents they worked alongside. That was the excuse Ratchet made to himself when the searing pain got worse and it came into question why he, the CMO, wasn’t taking care of himself by looking into what the pain was earlier.

            By the time everyone had been taken care of an hour or so ago and Ratchet had tried to get back to his studies, the pain had forced him to double over the medical slab, one servo resting on it, holding him up, while the other held his abdominal plating. When he wasn’t hissing Cybertronian swears, he was seething through gritted dentae.

            “Primus…”

            The pain wasn’t nearly this sharp before, and it didn’t persist as much as it was now. It felt like an eternity before it finally subsided and Ratchet immediately estimated that he wouldn’t have very long before it came back. Forcing himself upright, he checked his HUD. Admittedly, this wasn’t a screen he found himself entirely familiar with, silly as it was. Again, his excuse was that caring for the other Autobots left him little time for himself. His excuse, because any free time he did have he spent on his studies. His HUD showed him that his vitals were completely normal, except for one flashing warning in one section. Closing in on that section, his presumably inactive gestation chamber, sent him spiraling into what had to be the most panicking revelation in his long life.

 

_“Warning! Gestation chamber evicting. Emergence impending.”_

            Ratchet was overtaken by another sharp pain as soon as the message registered, forcing him to double over once more with a loud groan. Heavy, quick ex-vents escaped him involuntarily as he lowered his body, pressing his helm against the side of the berth. He didn’t even hear Optimus calling for him repeatedly until the door to his medbay suddenly opened.

            “Ratchet?”

            Ratchet forced his helm to look up, optic lenses widening at the blurred sight of his leader standing in the doorway, bewildered.

            “Optimus!”

            That contraction only worsened, causing Ratchet’s legs to wobble as though he were about to collapse. Through his fuzzy vision, he could see Optimus rush toward him, kindling a spike in his already rampant fear. Even as Optimus slung an arm around Ratchet’s waist to help him up, Ratchet shuddered at the sudden touch. He couldn’t read the Prime’s expression as Optimus’s now close frame came into focus.

            “Ratchet,” Optimus urged, voice as calm and still as it’s ever been at the best of times. “Do you know what is happening to you?”

            Ratchet nodded, shaky ex-vents escaping him as the contraction finally faded. With the pain temporarily gone, he was able to collect his thoughts and… and believe what he’d learned moments before Optimus found him.

            “Optimus, I… I’ve been irresponsible. A fool,” he began. “During all of my time fighting alongside you, tending to you and the Autobots, even before we arrived on this planet, I haven’t been tending to myself appropriately.”

            “What do you mean, Ratchet?” Optimus began to sound more alarmed. “Have you been ill?”

            “No, worse: I’ve been carrying, Optimus.” Just as Ratchet managed to spit that out, another contraction flared up. This one, twice as intense as the last few, sent urgency through Ratchet as he felt energon and gestational fluid leak from the crevices of his shut interface panel. That was a sign the sparkling was moving down in the gestation chamber, soon to leave it.

            “I need to get onto the berth, Optimus,” he gasped through shaky ex-vents. “Help me up, _now_.”

            Optimus was as slack-jawed and wide-opticed as anyone in his situation would be, yet there was no hesitation in his lifting Ratchet up onto the medical berth the medic had been leaning on. Ratchet overheard an ex-vent escape the larger mech as he was fixed into a comfortable position. The Prime must’ve had a plethora of thoughts racing through his processor at that moment, such as just how this slipped under the radar for so long and just who of the Autobots sired this sparkling that was about to arrive? Could it be that _he_ was the sire? Ratchet expected Optimus to fire all these question at him as he lay laboring on the medical slab, yet the Prime remained surprisingly patient.

            “Ratchet, I am going to contact Ironhide. He needs to know, and we need the aid of someone else,” Optimus explained soothingly, taking Ratchet’s servo in his. “Then I need you to tell me what I need to do. I have some medical expertise, but I have never delivered a sparkling.”

            “Yes, yes… I know.” Ratchet couldn’t bring himself to say any more on the matter as the sharp pain continued, only able to lean his helm back against the berth as he rode out the contraction.

            Optimus gathered towels as quickly as he possibly could, spreading some under Ratchet’s shaking legs and setting the rest aside for when the sparkling arrived. Ratchet’s frame relaxed against the berth under him as that contraction subsided and he awaited the next. On the next, he felt, he would certainly have to push. This sparkling he didn’t even know he was expecting was about to be brought into this war-torn world from his own body and all he wanted was for time to slow down, to be given a chance to adjust to all this. He’d get no such wish; the overwhelming rush of it all was his punishment for not paying attention to himself for the last hundred or so years.

            Ratchet opened his interface panel, causing more of the mixed fluid to gush onto the towels Optimus just set underneath him. Optimus was gazing at him expectantly, Ratchet able to catch him shuddering the slightest bit.

            “You’re going to cup your servos under my valve, Optimus. You need to watch it for any sign to the helm emerging and be prepared to support the helm when it comes out.” His frame flared up in an intense contraction again, and he fought to keep speaking through it. “D-do not, under any circumstances try to pull the sparkling out. Just… wait for it to land in your servos… It’ll come.”

            When Ironhide arrived, Ratchet was struggling to withhold his cries between gritted dentae as he pushed, Optimus standing at the end of the berth to peer into his spread legs. Ratchet noticed the weapon specialist from the corner of his optic as he stood in the doorway, the black mecha not nearly as able to look as compose as Optimus was. What a jarring sight this must’ve been for Ironhide to walk into. The contraction Ironhide walked in on had stopped, and Ratchet shook as he tried to keep himself sitting up. Ironhide quickly moved in to hold up Ratchet’s upper back strut, then caressed his helm with a digit.

            “So Prime wasn’t telling me an awful joke,” Ironhide whispered, as though he didn’t just run through the NEST base out of concern for his amica. “That was really stupid of you, Ratchet.”

            “I don’t need to hear this,” Ratchet grunted. “I already know.”

            “No, I had to go through a millennium of you telling me how stupid and reckless I am. It’s your turn now. That was stupid, Ratchet.”

            “This isn’t the-“ Ratchet let out a static-filled cry as a fresh contraction wracked through his frame and told him to bear down once more. As he did, he hissed the word “time” through his dentae. Ironhide leaned forward to leave dry kisses to the side of Ratchet’s helm, then instinctively reached down for the medic’s shivering servo to gently squeeze.

            Ratchet glanced up to Optimus, the Prime’s intense expression still hard to read. He noted Optimus’s optic ridges knit as his cobalt optics turned up toward Ratchet briefly before focusing in-between his legs again. Ratchet rationalized that the expression must signify his solidarity with Ironhide and disappointment in the CMO.

            “I have a visual now, Ratchet,” Optimus spoke after a good few minutes of silence on his part. “It should crown shortly. Just focus on this for now; we could worry about other matters when this sparkling is out.”

            Ratchet nodded, though that didn’t stop him from internally scolding himself for just how long he must’ve gone without noticing he was carrying, or from worrying about the health of the sparkling for that matter. His protoform had plumped slightly over the last few years, but not nearly enough for an ideal carrying cycle, meaning that obviously the sparkling wasn’t as big as it should’ve been. They could be premature, or they could’ve just not have developed properly. They might be in danger, or they might even already be dead. What has he done to his sparkling? What has he-

            “Ratchet,” Ironhide urged, surprisingly gentle for the kind of mecha he was. “Keep going. You have to concentrate. Push.”

            Ratchet gave a shaky ex-vent, nuzzling Ironhide in thanks for bringing him back to his senses before beginning to push again. For the next few minutes, Ratchet tried to block out any thoughts he had in order to do what his body demanded of him. Before long, there was a burning sensation as the top of the sparkling’s helm pressed against Ratchet’s lower lips. The medic tried desperately to keep himself from screaming, biting his dentae down on each other hard while squeezing Ironhide’s servo. The pain only got worse as the helm started to brush passed Ratchet’s valve, causing Ratchet to squeeze his optic lenses shut. Sensing this, Ironhide reached out to Ratchet’s EMP field with his own, attempting to relax it even the slightest bit as he lowered the servo holding Ratchet’s back strut up to rub gentle circles on his back.

            Suddenly, the sparkling’s helm had popped right out, held up carefully by Optimus’s much larger servos and still wrapped in some of the protective sac that accompanied developing protoforms inside the gestation chamber. Ratchet tried to lean forward to look at it, because by the way it came out so quickly, he could tell that it was too small. Before panic could settle in again, the urge to push overwhelmed him more than ever. As he screamed, there was no struggle to get every last bit of the sparkling out, no need to pray that the shoulder struts wouldn’t get stuck. There was only a large rush of fluid and the vague feeling of a weight slipping out of him before his audio receptors picked up the faintest of mewlings.

            Ratchet leaned forward and watched as Optimus’s careful digits broke open the protective sac, pulling it away from the sparkling’s body as she began to whimper and squirm in his grasp. He wasn’t sure if it was carrier protocols or if it was his impulse as a medic, but Ratchet immediately reached for his sparkling. Optimus, almost frightened by Ratchet’s instant movements, deposited the tiny femmeling right into Ratchet’s servos, the carrier immediately holding her to his chassis. She was nearly small enough to fit in Optimus’s two cupped servos and though she cried as she should, her cries sounded too quiet, too weak for Ratchet’s comfort.

            “Hand me a towel,” he barked. “Now!”

            As soon as a towel reached one of his servos – he didn’t notice who gave it to him – he began wiping away at the femmeling’s intake, whispering Cybertronian swears and prayers. The femmeling coughed up the last bit of fluid in her intake, as Ratchet had hoped, and began to cry out more loudly. This didn’t satisfy Ratchet, however, as he began scanning her, studying her vitals, and lifting her to examine every bit of her little body.

            “Ratchet, come on,” Ironhide’s voice suddenly broke through, laced with a concern Ratchet didn’t often hear. “She’s fine.”

            “She’s small,” Ratchet growled back.

            “Ratchet, you must be exhausted. Please take it easy,” Optimus coaxed. “I could clean her off for you if you just-“

            Ratchet, with little warning, began to pick himself up from the berth, despite every ache in his frame screaming at him not to. Ironhide quickly grabbed his shoulder struts from behind and Optimus gently pushed Ratchet back onto the berth with little difficulty, considering his size compared to the medic’s.

            “Enough, old friend.” Optimus’s tone was suddenly harsh, as though Ratchet’s panic hadn’t skyrocketed already. “Give her to me. I could take over.”

            “Get away,” Ratchet hissed. “Get out of my way and let me save my sparkling.”

            Optimus’s optic ridges raised. “Ratchet-“

            “Please,” the medic continued in a tired ex-vent. “I might’ve killed her.”

            His faceplates softening, Optimus nodded as he began to help Ratchet off the berth. Ironhide widened his optic lenses, knitting his ridges at Optimus as he opened his mouth to object. Optimus only gave a nod of acknowledgement in his direction before he began to help walk Ratchet toward his medical supplies.

            “I will not have you strain yourself,” Optimus uttered. “So at least allow me to assist you.”

            “…Alright.”

           

            It was maybe two hours later that the femmeling - revealed to have beautiful dark forest green plating once she’d been properly cleaned off - had been stabilized, fed, and placed in a makeshift resting hold to recharge next to the berth Ratchet finally allowed himself to lay back down on. Ironhide sat himself on one end of the same medical slab Ratchet rested on while Optimus placed himself beside the sparkling, using a digit to rub her little frame to make sure she was comforted.

            “It was a dangerous thing I did,” Ratchet murmured in his exhaustion.

            “You’re damn right it was-“

            “Ironhide…”

            “What if the little one decided to emerge in the middle of a battle, Ratchet?”

            Ironhide’s voice was rough, dripping in agitation, and Ratchet wasn’t going to argue with it for once. This time, it was deserved.

            “We’re fortunate that she did not,” Optimus remarked, fortunately remaining relatively reserved. “I’m not pleased with Ratchet, either. As he is… dear to me, he scared me, too. But I think that Ratchet understands his wrongdoings. There’s no need to reprimand him further, not when we have further matters to attend to.”

            “I wasn’t reprimanding him-“

            “Oh, please, Ironhide,” Ratchet interrupted. “The way you’re speaking is the definition of ‘reprimand’.”

            Ironhide furrowed his optic ridges at Ratchet. “As I was saying, I’m not… angry, as hard to believe as that is. I was just worried. You go about acting like no one is supposed to be concerned about you because you’re the medic. All these years, Optimus had you out on the front lines while you were carrying. And let’s face it, Ratchet, you’re no soldier.”

            “You’re not wrong there,” Ratchet ex-vented, leaning his helm back only to realize that Ironhide was cradling it in his servos. “Alright, you old fool; I’m sorry I worried you.”

            “You’re the old fool. You’re the one that managed to go years without knowing you were sparked.”

            Both Ratchet and Ironhide laughed as Optimus stood idly by.

            “I must admit… After what we’ve endured, there is something about seeing a new life brought into the world that fills the spark with joy,” he said, playfully tickling the sparkling’s little cheeks before his expression suddenly became serious. “…Even though the circumstances are not ideal for her.”

            Ratchet nodded, shutting his optic lenses while his faceplates drooped to something solemn. “I know. I didn’t even know I was expecting this youngling, and I brought her into a dangerous, war-torn world.”

            “Trying to raise a sparkling in such conditions is not something I condone,” Optimus continued. “We need to ensure her safety, even if it means parting with her.”

            Ratchet opened his optic lenses and turned his helm to look at the resting femmeling, his sparkling. She grew within his own protoform, from his own metal, and somehow that meant that the thought of parting with her was a painful, sparkache-inducing one. Still, he was a sensible bot.

            “Of course,” he uttered, shakily.

            “Hey,” Ironhide chimed in. “Don’t I always tell you I’ve got your back? I’ll help you through this.”

            Optimus nodded. “We both will.”

 

            “Let’s see if we could get the imports to respond this time, Thistle,” Ratchet muttered, one servo tapping away at the keys of a modified man-made computer. “Primus knows Optimus and I painstakingly put this together so that they eventually would.”

            The now months old femmeling, Thistle, watched intently from where she was held on her carrier’s hip. She reached forward with a whine, her little digits unable to reach the keys as she tried to mimic her carrier. Racthet chuckled.

            “No, no. That’s not for you to play with.”

            If Thistle temporarily took Ratchet’s attention, a bleep from the monitor that reached his audio receptors stole it back. Ratchet glanced up to see a message, able to be read clearly in Cybertronian. It looked too good to be true.

::We understand the situation and the urgency, but why should we travel far and risk putting ourselves in the middle of your war for one sparkling?::

            Ratchet narrowed his optic lenses, a huff escaping him as he quickly cobbled together a response.

::Because I’m Ratchet, renowned Cybertronian medic, and I believe I’ve done enough for you lot to warrant a favor.::

            The night had suddenly become silent as Thistle watched the white text on the screen grow. After long, she started to squirm and whine for her carrier’s attention until he finally turned his helm to her. A faltering smile grew on his faceplates as he held her close to his chassis.

            “You’re going home, little one.”


End file.
